Age of Sigmar – The Future is Bright, The Future is Tzeentch

Hello once again fellow table top heroes. I am here today to talk about the upcoming release of Age of Sigmar and my renewed attempt to play it using a Tzeentch army.

A year or so ago I watched an Age of Sigmar battle report and it looked great. The massive models, the frankly brutal combat phase and the overall tactics needed to make your army tick. Don’t get me wrong, I have major chub on for 40k at the moment, but it can feel very “point, click and win” at times, but Age of Sigmar feels more tactical in selecting which spells to use, which command abilities to us and which units to attack first. In my short lived first attempt at playing I found this to be very important due to the alternating unit activation rule (which I think is brilliant).

My first foray into the world of Age of Sigmar was somewhat short lived mainly due to one of my first games being against the Super Cheese Head of my Local Gaming Group. It wasn’t fun and I may as well have taken a dust pan and brush with me as he mercilessly, and with no skill I might add, mowed down my wonderful Slaves to Darkness. Fingers was also forced to eat this special brand of Cheese Sandwich and promptly sold his great Ghoul army.

However, those days are long past and the Cheese Head can eat my poo because after 2 games against great and fun opposition I am hooked.

I actually kept all my initial Slaves to Darkness army so I had a rather good base in which to start my army. In 40k, I am a staunch Imperialist, I have just commissioned an eye wateringly expensive Tau army but please don’t hold that against me, so I thought in the Age of Sigmar Universe I would go Balls Out Chaos. After watching a couple of YouTube videos by the amazing Vince Ventruella, I decided to plumb for Tzeentch.

The fluff behind my army is pretty straight and loosely based on the 40k Rubric Marines (Magnus did nothing wrong). My Chaos Sorcerer (Who will become in Chaos Lord going forward) burns with desire to become a great hero but hasn’t got the means or the power to bring together a warband.

Whilst wandering the vast wastes, he meets a Gaunt Summoner and his bodyguard, an Ogroid Thaumaturge. The Gaunt Summoner promises the Lord great victories to come if he gives up his soul to Tzeentch. The Lord, hastily agrees and feels his soul wretched from his body. Immediately, legions of soulless warriors emerge from the earth chanting “All is dust”…The Lord feels the untamed energy flowing through his veins and promises to bring great victories and trophies to The Lord Of Change.

My mate Joe, who also contributes to this site, had a rather sizeable force of Tzeentch daemons going spare. These ranged from Pink Horrors all the way up to a Lord of Change. So, being the great guy he is, he has sold them to me at a very reasonable price thus giving me the models to make a pretty decent, predominantly mortal, 1750 list.

Here is my list so far:

The Host of the Cyan Flame

Chaos Sorceror on Manticore

Ogroid Thaumaturge

Gaunt Summoner of Tzeentch

Lord of Change – Warlord

15 Chaos Warriors

10 Chaos Warriors

5 Chaos Knights

20 Pink Horrors

10 Blue Horrors

I have costed up the Pink and Blue Horrors purely because the new Generals Handbook (at time of writing) hasn’t been released yet. News is that summoning will be free – so eventually these units will go in “summoning reserve” and I will have enough space to maybe bring in some more Chaos Warriors.

My first game was against my mate Rob who has an incredible pure Skaven Horde Army – it really is a sight to behold. I think I counted 90 Rats!

The game was great fun with some brutal combat from both sides. Rob needed to take out my Gaunt Summoner quickly as his magic spell, Infernal Flames, can cause major pain to hordes. Me being a complete Noob left the rear of my rear door open (not for the first time, guffaw) to deep strike which Rob quickly took advantage of and made his massive Rat Monster thing appear and smash the poor little Summoner to blue paste.

This did however leave the Rat Monster to a brutal Magic and Assault counter punch from the 10 Warriors and Ogroid. I think the Ogroid model is fantastic, and living by the Rule of Cool, it was a must have addition to my army. His magic spell is also pretty brutal. I cast Fireblast, used one of my Fate Dice to cause 6 Mortal Wounds which made 6 Pink Horrors appear! How awesome is that?! The Rat Monster was eventually dragged down by the 10 Chaos Warriors.

Fate Dice – basically 9 free dice that I can use to determine the outcome of most things ranging from damage output to save rolls. You can just imagine Tzeentch sitting there foreseeing the future and being it to his will. Brilliantly thematic and really strong within the game.

Both armies eventually met in the middle of the table and spent 5 round of combat beating seven bells of poop out of each other. One thing I did learn is that Chaos Warriors are a great speed bump unit. They have a 4+ save, a 5+ save against mortal wounds and 2 wounds a piece. They take some serious fire-power to get moved. I love them.

The match eventually ended with a win for Rob as he was able to hold the objectives for longer than I was. I think the final score was 5-2. But we both made simple mistakes and out next game will be much closer (hopefully).

From my first match, I was rather under whelmed by the Lord or Change. It is a great unit with some good stats and I am sure it will cause some hurt in my upcoming rematch with Rob.

I didn’t get to use my Gaunt Summoner at all before it got its head kicked in. I am not expecting much from him in the future, he is there purely for horde control and with the ability to cast two powers per turn, this will be his sole purposes in life.

My Chaos Sorceror was by far the worst performer on the table. Pretty stale magic ability and even worse damage output. The less said about him the better, He is now is the process of being changed into a Chaos Lord on Manticore. He will then become my Warlord with Timeslip Pendant and Favoured of Tzeentch. I am hoping this will turn him into an absolute monster.

Ogroid is a beast. I probably see him through rose tinted glasses as I love the model so much. But, I don’t care, I love it, he’s in to stay. He is powerful, versatile and the model is amazing.

The horrors did what I think they are there for, they bogged people down. They are tough to fully destroy because their “Split” rule. In the future this will allow my other units the freedom to do their jobs like taking and holding objectives, I think this will be the Chaos Warriors calling.

What I really like about Age of Sigmar is that I find highly tactical. You need to decide which units to attack with first, knowing that another of your units needs to be able to take the counter punch and you opponent has to bear this in mind too. So no charging headlong into your opponents lines on your own as you will get dragged down.

Also, with the new Command Point system which restricts your use of Command Abilities, you really need to know when to use the right one. So having 3, 4 or even 5 Hero units in your army is a viable option.

This brings me nicely on to Hero units. They are incredible models. Each faction have amazing models. True heroes that can swing the tide of battle single-handed. I mean, just look for yourself!!

Please remember nerdlings, I am a complete Noob and all my opinions are my own. These opinions will change over time, so please bear with me.

I am only a couple of games in to Age of Sigmar, but the future is bright, the future is Tzeentch.